Balancing Financial Health & Emotional Wealth

Manisha Thakor has worked in financial services for over thirty years, with an emphasis on women’s economic empowerment and financial well-being. She is the author of MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your “Enough,” and has been featured everywhere including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, CNN, CNBC, Real Simple & Women’s Health. Her work focused on helping individuals of all ages balance financial health and emotional wealth.

Today, Manisha joins the show to talk about seeking wealth, counterfeit financial culture, and the difference between money problems and money worries.

📺 Watch on YouTube

https://youtu.be/tCQxxcAEwh4?si=Hijunx2kqk9VYsNp

Key Takeaways

00:59 – Jonathan introduces today’s guest, Manisha Thakor, who joins the show to talk about positive financial lessons she learned from both her mother and father

09:14 – Seeking wealth

13:36 – The feeling of ‘Enough’ and how gender influences it

16:51 – Money problems vs money worries

20:05 – The differences between the social infrastructures of the U.S. and Nordic countries

26:07 – Counterfeit Financial Culture and Hungry Ghosts, explained

32:50 – Financial Health plus Emotional Wealth equals Money Zen

36:57 – One thing we can do to increase personal and financial success and one thing to completely ignore

45:00 – One thing people don’t know about Manisha that she would like them to know, and one piece of advice she would give to her younger self

48:41 – Jonathan thanks Manisha for joining the show, encourages the audience to leave a review on her book on Amazon, and lets listeners know where to connect with her

Tweetable Quotes

“My mom is a hippie. She always – back before it was cool – had me playing with gender neutral toys and told me that money gives women voices and choices. And so I had very positive money influences growing up.” (04:47) (Manisha)

“And so, a set of behaviors that helped protect me as a young child ended up as a runaway trait, a subconscious way of moving through the world. And, in the world of finance, when you work like a maniac and you’re trying to earn a lot of money, that’s called being a good employee.” (10:57) (Manisha)

“A money problem is something that can be solved with a series of factual, tactical action steps. For example, how much house can I really afford? What is a reasonable, sustainable rate of withdrawal if I’m headed into retirement? My credit score is in the crapper. How do I improve it? Money problems.” (17:06) (Manisha)

“Money worries are things that have emotional components to their solution, versus purely factual, tactical.” (18:35) (Manisha)

“When we meet someone in the U.S. what is one of the first three questions we ask them? ‘What do you do?’ Overseas, in most countries, that is not the case. But we ask that question and we judge the person’s answer. Therefore, we are placing a value on ourselves and our fellow human beings based not on who they are – their character, the joy of being around them, the curiosity they may inspire in you – but what they do. That’s how we’re valuing them.” (21:00) (Manisha)

“Counterfeit Financial Culture is my name for the way in which we have anchored ourselves and our self-worth to false financial images.” (26:26) (Manisha)

“In lay language, the Buddhist concept [of Hungry Ghosts] is that amongst us walk hungry ghosts who have distended bellies because they are so starved for love and recognition and acceptance, but their throats are as thin as a needle. So, no matter how much of that they receive, they can never fill the hunger. And, I would argue that we have a whole heck of a lot hungry ghosts running around as a result of these factors that I talk about in Money Zen.” (31:23) (Manisha)